I use jj vcs and now most of my time is spent reading the code, so I use diffview.nvim (https://github.com/sindrets/diffview.nvim) with some customizations for jj to read diffs. I also use the snacks picker/explorer to search for code.
As much as I like Claude Code, Boris has done a lot of harm by encouraging software engineering practices that lead to slopware. We have two camps of people at work, the first camp are the agent goes brrr. They don't understand the code they write. They have loops running, agent orchestrators or agent hype du jour. The second camp is people who are inundated with PRs, are holding the line on quality, and just exhausted. We've also had some management pressures where they think people are wasting time looking at code. Perhaps because some podcast they might be listening to, somebody says coding is largely solved.
> I don’t prompt Claude anymore. I have loops running that prompt Claude and figuring out what to do. My job is to write loops.
This is going to be a net negative on software quality for people who take this up, in my opinion.
I call out Boris but I also don't think he's being malicious. He's at the center of an important technological revolution and it would be hard not to get excited. I just wished he advocated for a more balanced and a realistic perspective.
This is so misguided, I don't even know where to begin. If you think that throwing more tokens at a problem with your agents cos-playing whatever fiction you cook up is the road to reliability, robustness and good design, you deserve all the misery that comes your way. If you want people to take this seriously, ground your ideas with rigorous data to prove that this works better than the state of the art. Until then, this is just irresponsible planet burning, token burning propaganda.
What has strongdm actually built? Are their users finding value from their supposed productivity gains?
If their focus is to only show their productivity/ai system but not having built anything meaningful with it, it feels like one of those scammy life coaches/productivity gurus that talk about how they got rich by selling their courses.
Ah yes, shades of Siddhartha. I almost forgot about the part where he worked for a megacorp that was ripping society’s social fabric apart and wanted to do something else for a while.
Right on. I have a heat pump water heater and a heat pump heating system in my HVAC. Getting those installed felt like swimming upstream. Most contractors would try to dissuade me from them.
Luckily, I found a contractor who was skilled and knowledgeable about heat pumps and rebates (back when govt thought climate change was real). Very happy with my heat pump tech.
Makes sense. I think they're lucky to be around you. Since you're hanging out on HN, I'd imagine you care about tech, doing things well and have a natural curiosity.
Back when I started out, I was deep in debt, insecure about my skills and being around highly skilled people who had many more years of experience only deepened those insecurities. Luckily, people were kind and patient with me and gave me the apprenticeship I needed. They deeply cared about technical expertise and doing things well, probably like you if I am guessing right. I have my dream job today, and I am in a position to mentor new grads. I continue to pay it forward as the senior engineers did when I started out. Not all my colleagues do this, but I see so much potential around me and I try to grow it. It's one of the most satisfying when I get a note from a new grad/junior engineer on how they've grown after our work together.
Thank you for caring!
On a side note, I can't imagine the anxiety they must go through now between the economy being what it is and AI exacerbating the gaps in technical skills. Seems like a scarier time than when I graduated. It's harder to mentor in this environment, but it's a fun challenge to learn how to mentor in this environment.
That's an interesting perspective. Thanks for sharing. If you had free rein of an engineering school in a university system, how would you re-design curriculum to address your concerns and establish proof of teaching critical thinking?
I don’t understand, can you elaborate? I’m trying to understand your perspective. New college grads I generally meet and work with are bright, hard working, curious and have a deep desire to learn.
I don’t think we’re having the same experiences so I want to know more about yours.
I second this. I’m not a ruby dev and I watched the whole talk. It was excellent.
Goes on to show how for many applications overly priced platforms as a service aren’t really needed but incidental complexity masquerading as essential complexity is peddled as a way to make money.